It takes a bold conductor to undertake in a single evening Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and Mahler's Sixth Symphony, both powerful works in minor keys. But when that conductor is Ilan Volkov, all such preconceptions disappear. Volkov's concern for the intrinsic detail of the scores helped create a balance that took the listener beyond the confines of a darkly tragic view.

The collaboration with pianist Stephen Kovacevich proved fascinating. While it is Kovacevich's ability to capture the profoundly poetic moments in Beethoven that make his interpretations so illuminating, time has not diminished his willingness to seize the moment and colour it vividly. There was momentary unsteadiness in the first movement, but it only underlined the dramatic tension and seemed to spring from the same willingness of conductor and soloist to be spontaneous and passionate without losing the fundamental classical discipline.

Nowhere was the sense of mutual recognition more evident than in the central largo, whose lyricism was magically sustained.

Realising the tragic grandeur of Mahler's Sixth is the challenge that preoccupies most conductors. Although the urgency and sheer force of the opening movement suggested that Volkov was approaching the symphony with broad brushstrokes, it was his attention to the intricacies that made this performance so absorbing. The subtleties of the instrumentation emerged with astonishing clarity, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra playing with every fibre of their corporate being. Thus the moments of positively ecstatic joy at the heart of the andante seemed to speak of something greater than individual destiny.

Perhaps it is the optimism of a young conductor that allows the notion of irrevocable fate to be given such a vibrant and all-embracing treatment.